


The Gardener

by ChainSmokesPens



Category: Original Work
Genre: Deer, Fantasy, Flash Fic, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:27:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28643679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChainSmokesPens/pseuds/ChainSmokesPens
Summary: Prompt: [WP] One day without warning a ancient nature god awoke from its slumber. It to say the least was livid.





	The Gardener

The bellowing yawn resonated around the globe, audible to the deaf, trembling the air and everything that flew, swam, and walked with the strength of a moderate earthquake. There was alarm and hysteria, with certainty, but those unfortunate people who chose to enjoy a wonderfully hot summer's day at Myrtle Beach were the least fortunate of all. They saw it first.  
The first anomaly that occurred was the cessation of the tide's ebb and flow. The waters of the Atlantic locked in place, smoothing out. The people half-caught in the water's new tension found they were able to push themselves up with their hands and stand on the surface. The people who were submerged in the water, however, save for the few whose friends could see their distress, were trapped there, the pressure of the water above them pressing down like a saturated blanket, suffocating them.  
Any hope those trapped had of being saved evaporated at the first sign of lights in the sky. Auroras did not occur in South Carolina. So rather than admire the beautiful greens and violets of the ribbons of lights in the sky, the witnesses were confused. And that confusion gave way to terror.  
Look out into the Atlantic, they could see it. A verdant speck on the horizon, it was already too close. Many witnesses grew nauseous, a freshly-wrought anxiety as opposed to any supernatural impetus. The form bobbed steadily along the water, walking, driving those still out on the ocean to run back to the beach.  
Many fled. Many more didn't.  
Their panic was eased. An unknown sense of peace had quelled much of their anxieties. A primal calm washed over them as the figure steadily approached.  
With clearer, steady minds many opted to alert the police. Some opted to return to the water and search for the submerged; they were all met with tragic results.  
An hour came and went. The police had lined the beach, escorting the civilians further back, onto the city streets. The military was on the way. Within the hour, the being had transformed from a speck to a figure. And it was alarming.  
Whoever witnessed it, regardless of how far they were, could see it as clearly as if it were before them. A colossal stag, bright green, moving closer to the shore. It lacked hooves, walking instead on four white hands with seven digits each. It's back was covered in dense feathers, it's tail was like that of a lion, and its horns were bonsai trees, growing and sprouting leaves in a noble, natural crown.  
Within an hour it half a mile from the shore. The military and police were lined up, waiting for what this alien creature would do. Citizens were packed chest-to-back. People peeked from the curtains of their hotel rooms. The creature's foreleg, the hand at the base of it clenching, flexing, and relaxing, took its first step onto the beach.  
And the first tree sprouted.  
To the civilians further off, it was surprising. A tree that seemed to be some sort of pine, no more than three feet in diameter, yet shooting to a height of four stories, compared to the nearby apartments, appeared out of nowhere. It burst upwards and grew in a fraction of a second.  
The soldiers in front, however, grimaced in horror as one of their comrades transformed into a tree, his vest, helmet, and shield dripping with blood, hanging from the pine's branches like morbid decorations.  
Then another tree. And another. They sprouted so fast that it took twelve trees before the crowd broke into a panic. They struggled against each other, forcing themselves as far from the threat as possible. Many were trampled by the moving crowd. Fortunately, the pain of feet treading and tripping over them would disappear as their bodies collapsed into the physical consistency of mud.  
There was the explosion of shattering glass. People turned to see the window of a beachside motel, the wooden structure transforming into a single tree, as bloody branches reached out of the broken window.  
Those who sheltered in their hotel rooms were trapped, the stone and metal warping, disfiguring doors and windows and making them impossible to open. They could only look out their windows, the creatures golden, compound pupils staring back at them.  
In them they saw the beauty of the world as it had been. In them they saw the rise of flowers in the steps of the creature. In them they saw a pride of lions sleeping peacefully among a flock of lambs. Then they saw nothing more, as the fluid in their eyes boiled and evaporated.  
Cars were transformed into their base minerals, locking their passengers inside until they managed to break their windows. The ravens and seagulls that had been picking at the trash grew larger, decorated in verdant plumage, aggressively plucking up and flying away with whatever human they could grab. Spores fell as the stag's fur shook, landing on those that fled, digging into their flesh and taking root, blooming instantly into hydrangeas and daffodils and chrysanthemums and bachelor buttons. With each step, grass sprung from its palms, spreading faster than the crowd could flee, grabbing some of them in snares by their ankles and wrists, pinning them down.  
The stag released a great bellow. And with it ivy sprung forth. The vines coiled through the grass, around the new trees and returned stone, growing grapes and pumpkins side-by-side on the same vine.  
The creature marched on, proceeded by a terrible parade of increasingly mutilated humans, wailing as roots punctured their joints, as they were stomped into mud, as they were crushed by stone and plucked by birds and burst into trees.  
The garden needed to be rid of its vermin.

**Author's Note:**

> I like doing things like these, but I need to start making a conscious effort to dial it down a bit. It's becoming territory that's too familiar. But, maybe that's a good thing? I don't know.


End file.
